NEWT GINGRICH & PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS ++ WILL REPUBLICANS SUPPORT DEPLETION OF SS TRUST FUND?

++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING
++ ANNOUNCEMENTS
++ NEWT GINGRICH & PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS
++ WILL REPUBLICANS SUPPORT DEPLETION OF SS TRUST FUND?


++ AGENDA FOR THIS WEEK’S MEETING

Our 12 noon luncheon for Wednesday, November 30th will be held at
Italiano’s restaurant, 4801 North Lincoln in OKC. We are going to call
this week’s meeting, “Home School Wednesday” as we will have about 10
home school students who have planned and will conduct our meeting. I
think most all of these students are affiliated with the Generation
Joshua Project. I am sure they will explain what that means and
provide an excellent program. Several years ago we had about 8 to 15
home school students attend nearly every Wednesday for a period of
about 4 years. Their parents believed the weekly OCPAC meetings would
provide the best civics education available as well additional
information on a broad range of issues. We don’t see those students
much anymore since they got busy with college and other objectives in
life. We have turned our meetings over to home schoolers in the past
and they have always done an excellent job of planning and conducting
a meeting. I often hear conservatives say, “where are the young
people?” You won’t have to go any further than our Wednesday meeting
to see the hope for our future.

++ ANNOUNCEMENTS

* TUESDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - State Representative Charles Key
(R-OKC) will host a campaign kick-off event for his effort to run for
Oklahoma County Court Clerk. The fundraiser will be from 5:30 to 7:00
p.m. at H&H Gun Range, 400 South Vermont Ave, Suite #100. Speaking on
behalf of Charles will be Oklahoma House Speaker Designee, T.W.
Shannon (R-Lawton). So grab your checkbook and come help Charles get
started in this race. Not everyone can contribute the maximum of
$5,000, but those smaller contributions of $20, $50 and a $100 really
add up. I am sure Charles will be appreciative of any and all the help
folks can contribute.

* FRIDAY EVENING - OKC AREA - The many chapters of the John Birch
Society will host their annual Christmas dinner and fund raising
auction this Friday evening (6:30 p.m.) at the Character Inn, 520 West
Main in downtown OKC. The cost for the dinner is $10. Please bring one
nice auction item per person or family and come join the fun. I will
buy the dinner for 1 person, deemed by those in attendance, to have
dressed more in the Christmas spirit than I. Good luck, I won’t be
easy to beat!!!

* SATURDAY, DEC 3RD - STATE WIDE - The Fox News Cable Channel
will host a presidential forum during the Mike Huckabee show which
airs at 7:00 p.m. Central Standard Time. Oklahoma’s Attorney General,
Scott Pruitt will be one of the 3 Attorney Generals to moderate the
forum. Hopefully Scott will ask pertinent questions about federalism
and states rights. Questions about the proper balance between the
states and the federal government as well as limiting the
jurisdictions of the federal judiciary. I am under no illusion that
this important program will be able to compete with the entertainment
of the bedlam game in Stillwater, but that is what those DVR’s are
for. So record the program and watch it later.

* SATURDAY, DEC 10TH - TULSA AREA - For many years the city of
Tulsa had a traditional Christmas parade. However, with the advent of
secularists gaining control of the parade, they changed it to some
kind of a nebulous “holiday parade”. U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe had
participated in the parade for many years by riding on horseback.
Because of the change, Senator Inhofe announced last year that he
would not participate in the parade, nor will he this year.

As a result, several Christians and conservatives got together and
planned to have a Christmas parade to once again honor Jesus as the
reason for the season. Therefore, the Tulsa CHRISTMAS parade will
occur Saturday evening, December 10th, starting at 6:00 p.m. The
location will be the Tulsa Hills Shopping Center, 71st street South
and U.S. highway 75. If you would like to help sponsor or volunteer in
the effort, please call (918) 583-2345. If you can’t help, you may
just want to attend and see the parade.

++ NEWT GINGRICH & PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS

Some of the reasons I so appreciate the John Birch Society (I have
been a member since 1988) is their understanding of the importance of
accurate history as well as what parts of history are important to
understand. In addition, there is probably no organization better at
discerning the enemies of Americanism, enemies that I would suggest
are made up of individuals and/or organizations dedicated to
destroying our national sovereignty and merging us into a global
socialist state.

About 2 years ago the Society discerned that the “establishment
insiders” considered Newt Gingrich as one of their prime candidates to
win the Republican nomination for president. As such, the Birch
Society produced a 33 minute DVD called “The Real Newt Gingrich” to
expose his long history of being wrong on issues and flip flopping
when necessary. I will have those DVDs available at our meeting for
people to take and view if they would like.


As recently as September, I believed Newt would not rise to the top,
but the many debates have allowed Mr. slickster to display his
intelligence and shine with is quick wit and grasp of issues and
experience. It appears that large numbers have taken the bait and with
the hook firmly set in their mouth he is reeling them in as they have
propelled him to near the top of the race. It so reminds me of the
2008 election cycle when we got down to the choice of the insider
establishment’s John McCain or Mitt Romney to chose from for the
Republican ticket or the insider establishment’s Barrack Obama or
Hillary Clinton to chose from on the Democrat side.

This time it is looking like our choices are boiling down to choosing
between the insider establishment’s choice of Mitt Romney or Newt
Gingrich on the Republican side to go up against the insider
establishment’s Barrack Obama, who is burning out and is not likely to
win re-election. The other establishment candidates (they never get
behind just one candidate or just one party), Jon Huntsman and Rick
Perry either never got any traction or fizzled out over night.

Some weeks back I suggested the only 3 I would consider would be
Michele Bachmann, Ron Paul or Herman Cain (Rick Santorum and the
others never got out of the starting gate. For a variety of reasons I
am about finished with Herman Cain, though I really liked his 999
plan, especially since it was to be a bridge to The Fair Tax.

I know many will disagree with me on the presidential candidates and
that is fine. In my entire 28 years or so of activism, a primary
candidate I have supported has never won the nomination (I was just
beginning to get involved in 84 when Reagan ran for re-election). Am I
out of step with the easily manipulated majority? Absolutely! I may
not be correct in my evaluations, but please remember, the majority is
almost always wrong! If they weren’t wrong, then we wouldn’t be in the
mess that we find ourselves in today.

++ WILL REPUBLICANS SUPPORT DEPLETION OF SS TRUST FUND?

Some important information to understand. Anytime we are in a
recession, all good little Keysian Economists always desire to infuse
money into the economy to pump it up and get us out of difficult
economic times. Those newly infused dollars in the hands of people
usually cause them to buy more goods and services, thus putting more
demand into the economy and as such people go to work to meet that new
demand and thus the economy pulls out of a recession.

There are a variety of ways to infuse money into the economy.
Republicans like to do so through tax cuts. They like to say that
people can spend their money better than government. While I agree
with that notion, the following point needs to be understood by
conservatives. A tax cut, WITHOUT a corresponding spending cut of the
same amount or more, is simply a means to infuse money into our
economy. Those circumstances are not likely to create real wealth, but
rather additional revenues through inflation, which by definition is
an expansion of the money supply.

Now a little history over the past 3 years. When President Obama
gained power, along with strong Democrat majorities in the Congress,
we were in a recession. One of the main efforts to infuse cash into
the system resulted in the Congress of 2008, along with the support of
the President, passing a law to create a tax rebate (kick back) of
$400 dollars per working person for taxable years 2009 and 2010. Most
people drawing a paycheck saw their paychecks adjusted to allow for
that rebate to be figured in over a year’s time. Thus, everyone’s
paycheck rose about $8 per week per working person or about $32 per
month per working person.

After the 2010 elections, the President and a lame duck congress,
still controlled by Democrats, changed their strategy. They
discontinued giving the tax credit which was tied to a person’s income
tax obligation. That tax credit, (tax credits are actually government
expenditures) along with massive new federal spending in other areas
caused our annual deficit and also our national debt to rise
dramatically.

However, to keep the citizens paychecks from going down, for the
taxable year of 2011, they decided to pass a law to reduce the amount
of payroll taxes we pay. Though everyone paid $8 more in income taxes,
the nearly 33% reduction in payroll taxes actually caused most
individual’s paychecks to increase even more for 2011 than had
occurred in 09 and 2010.

Here is the problem. What we call payroll taxes weren’t really
intended to be a tax, but rather an insurance premium for the social
security and medicare trust funds. Words have meanings and in our
sloppiness we have been calling these FICA insurance premiums, taxes.
FICA stands for the Federal Insurance Contribution Act. In other
words, it was originally to be a stand alone old age retirement
insurance fund and as such what we pay into that trust fund should
better be understood to be insurance premiums rather than a tax.

In all but about 10 years since the existence of the FICA (social
security) program (of 1933) the premiums have been greater than the
pay-outs, thus creating a surplus for most of the existence of the
program. Congress has borrowed those surpluses by creating both short
term and long term interest bearing bonds. Congress has never failed
(so far) to pay those bonds back, so anytime you hear someone say
congress has stolen the funds, you are listening to an ignorant
person, because Congress has never stolen a penny of those funds. What
Congress has failed to do is keep the Trust Fund actuarially sound.

In the taxable year of 2010, the surpluses dried up and the FICA Trust
Fund began to operate in the red again. As such, Congress had to
borrow money from other sources to pay back some of the bonds so
social security benefits wouldn’t have to be reduced. Of course
borrowing from other sources to pay back some of the bonds, caused our
national debt to rise.

With the system beginning to operate in the red in 2010, it was simply
crazy for Obama and the Democrats to allow people a 33% reduction in
what they paid into the Trust fund. It was insane, that is unless the
Democrats were wanting to set up the incoming Republicans for future
problems in the eyes of an economically ignorant American public who
has little understanding of budgeting and keeping stand alone trust
funds actuarially sound. In addition, I suspect Obama would like to
destroy the free standing trust fund and cause people to rely upon the
general fund to pay for their future benefits.

Here is the dilemma for the Republicans. The 33% reduction in what we
pay in FICA premiums is set to expire on December 31st. Will
Republicans provide some responsible LEADERSHIP and refuse to continue
those reductions (Obama actually proposed the 33% cut be increased to
50% for what working people pay and a 50% reduction in what employers
pay up to a certain amount) or will they continue the reductions and
thus cause the fund to be depleted? By not restoring these insurance
premiums into the system, the Republicans will be just as guilty as
the Democrats in hastening the day premiums will have to be raised
above their current levels or else benefits will have to be reduced.
If Republicans refuse to do what is right, the 2033 date for a
collision will be moved up to the very near future. I wonder if
Americans will act like Europeans when their benefits are reduced by
30 to 35 percent?

On the other hand, if Republicans do the responsible thing and
discontinue the cuts, the average family will see their monthly
paycheck decrease by about $80 per month. That is why it is a dilemma
for the Republicans. Would taking that $80 per month out of paychecks
to put back into the trust fund weaken the economy? Probably! That is
why it is so difficult to cut spending when we are printing or
borrowing about 1.6 Trillion per year more than the federal government
takes in in revenues. Those borrowed or printed dollars are propping
up our economy which is already struggling. That is why cutting
spending without recapturing our manufacturing base and expanding our
energy sector to provide more jobs for Americans is very difficult and
risky.

I don’t think Republicans understand this much better than do
Democrats. Further reductions in taxes on individuals will do little
to improve our economy. Reducing taxes on businesses is vital and one
of several necessary steps to re-capturing our manufacturing base in
America.

I look forward to seeing everyone this Wednesday.

Charlie Meadows
Charliemeadows7@gmail.com